Origin ARS 4 (5 page)

Scott blinked at the strange little scene then shook his head. It was good to see them get along, but he had begun to wonder if they were getting along a little too well. Time with the mermaids might have had a special sort of effect on their relationship that was just... great.

The trio giggled and laughed for a while then accepted numerous quests. It would actually be pointless to speak to anyone about a writ of meritorious service until they had done at least one significant thing for the country. They would find it easier to negotiate such an event if they had a few completed quests under their belt.

Scott had asked Rhea earlier if she had done any quests in the area, but she had not really focused on questing. Rhea was an avatar that Origin used when she wanted to murder hapless animals in the wilderness as a stress release exercise. She had performed few quests other than ones that helped her find specialty equipment. Scott had to accept the fact that nothing was ever too easy. If she had actually already had a writ then none of this would be necessary.

***

Shara sighed lightly at the monitor. She had to choose a backstory, stats, and skills for her avatar. Her community service project could not begin properly until she did so. The skills and stats were simple enough to choose from. The problem was not related to the system and the alpha-testing she would have to perform. No, the issue was that the red-haired goddess could not decide what she wished to do in regards to the world-setting and backstory.

“I guess I could be an American, like Scott.” Shara smiled gently then sighed a little after she thought of him. She had developed a huge crush on the man over the years, but she knew that it was not really love. If anything her desire to be with him was more due to obsession over her sister’s interest and her loneliness. He was a great guy, and if her sister was not so stingy, they would have really cute babies at some point. Sadly, such was not the case.

“Scott...” said Shara with a soft sigh. She’d had her shot at a Scott of her own, but his heart had not been ready for the love that she’d had to give. Now she was at a loss. She was fine with only being friends with her sister’s love interest, but she also liked him. Well, the idea of him.

She thought about that for a moment. “What was that called again?”

Shara blinked then raised one finger up into the air as the term came to mind. “Dimensional Analogous Typological and Approximate Soul Syndrome.”

Yes, poor little Shara had a severe case of DAT ASS. Every time she thought of Scott, the symptoms of DAT ASS became quite apparent. It was a common affliction among the gods. It amounted to an inter-dimensional concept of not being able to love the one you want, so you ended up loving the one who you were with at the time. It was similar, except for the fact that both people were essentially different reality versions of the same person.

“I so have a major case of DAT ASS.” said Shara with a sigh. There was no cure for it, either. The only way to treat the affliction was to actively end up in a relationship with the person you longed for, or one of their close dimensional analogous approximations. It was all the same soul anyway, just different expressions of that person that existed on alternate points on variable timelines.

“Too bad there’s no Scott in this world.” said Shara sadly. Until she found a Scott of her own she would be forever miserable due to having a severe case of DAT ASS.

Shara blinked a moment later. “Wait; is there a Scott in that world?”

She began checking through the records for various spiritual patterns. Personalities can be different between soul expressions, but the spiritual resonance pattern was always identical. It did not take long for her to discover that there was indeed a Scott in that world.

“Hmm, information more than one year after insertion is blocked until after the initial insertion period is over.” It was annoying but it did make sense to her. The timeline would be changed by the insertion of the few thousand alpha-testers involved. If they knew what originally happened, they might cause even more disruption to occur. The entire purpose of the project was to try and mitigate those sorts of issues to an extent.

Scott would be roughly two years old by the time she was inserted. That was nice. He would be older than her. Shara giggled softly then thought about how she could be his cute little junior.

“Please take care of me.” she said sweetly to the infant on the screen.

“Well, I know exactly where I am going to be inserted now. I just need to figure out a background that will allow me to meet up with community service Scott.” said Shara.

She scoured the local area for a worthwhile family to give birth to her. Eventually, she gave up and chose the custom family option. It would allow her to have parents crafted for her, as well as a custom backstory. It was not as good as being born normally, but at least it would meet her requirements with greater ease.

She opened up the character model generation kit, and began to craft her family members. She would be an only child, as that would be easiest to deal with at the moment. Her father would be a ruggedly handsome man who was a mixture of Caucasian and Latin features. He would meet her mother, the daughter of a traditional Japanese ninja master, during a business trip to Japan.

Shara threw in a few random parts about her father having been born to a family of American demon hunters, so that her parents had something in common. The family business, so to speak, was fighting crime and supernatural evil. They also sold weapons.

The backstory flew from her fingers as she crafted the perfect background for her avatar. After she finished a few more things, she hit send. It took a few minutes, but the project leader sent back his approval. A dozen mortal souls were contacted and after a brief moment of discussion they chose to be contractually obligated to reincarnate in the world according to Shara’s requirements. They would have the chance to live again, and would also be part of helping that world’s human population. In short, it sounded like fun to be demon hunting ninjas instead of disembodied floating masses of spiritual essence.

“Excellent, I have a family on that world for my avatar, and I can live near that Scott. What else do I need?” she asked.

Shara had to consider the future carefully. She already knew that she would have the expert knowledge and skills of a demon hunting ninja master by the time the community service ended. What she had to work on was her character interaction. Namely, dare she go for the brass ring and make an attempt to get to know this Scott on a personal level? Did she want him to help her deal with DAT ASS?

Yes, yes she did. “I’ll have to really make an impact in his life. I wonder how I’ll accomplish that?”

The ninja goddess was practically giddy at the idea of being able to spend a mortal life with Scott, even if they ended up as just friends once more, there was no reason for her to believe that she would feel like an outsider forever. Besides that, Rhea could not be mad if she did all manner of interesting things with community service Scott. She had laid claim on a different one already.

“You know, this could be fun. Maybe, I can be the cute childhood friend who he secretly longs for.... Oh, that would be great!” Shara squealed with such excitement that Gambol would have been proud of her tone and volume.

Shara thought about what things might be like once they were older and her eyes widened. She pulled out a paper fan then laughed loudly in a disturbingly goofy and lecherous manner. “Oh ho ho ho ho ho.”

Chapter 5: True Human Potential

The darkness erupted into a dazzling kaleidoscope of intense colors as a Prismatic Sphere of burning light exploded in the center of the room. Rat-men screamed as they burned. Their vision and hearing had been compromised for the moment, and that moment was all that Rhea needed to slip in and finish them off.

Scott continued forward and used his [
Burning Prismatic Sphere
] spell once more. It had been a simple matter to work their way through the warrens of the rat-men bandits that had plagued the country-side recently.

While they were roughly level sixty monsters, it did not matter much when Rhea had such a major advantage in equipment. Scott’s spell, a level three fire spell that caused a blind and stun effect, was quite potent when used in an enclosed area. The damage was mitigated somewhat due to the level of the monsters versus his own, but the status effects still kicked in since the Rat-Men were weak to bright lights and sudden loud noises.

By the time the warrens were cleared they had burned their way through forty or so of the diseased vermin. The battle report was quite nice to behold.

[Battle Report]

You have defeated thirty-seven Rat-Men in a running battle. Bonuses and rewards await you!

+ 99,900 EXP

+ 123,245 Fayth

+ 232 Ability Points

Item(s) Acquired:

Rat-Man Fang X 12

Garnet X 2

Corroded Sword X 5

Steel Dagger X 14

Leather Battle Harness X 2

[--]

“Sweet, close to gaining another level.” said Scott.

Rhea smiled at him. “Good. It takes a little longer after you hit forty, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, no kidding. It’s better than having it double every time I gain a level, though.” he said with a smile of his own.

“Plan on giving it all to Ero again?” asked Rhea.

“Yeah, that’s what I want to know, too.” said the happy little fairy. Ero fluttered over to Scott and batted her eyelashes at him cutely.

“Yeah, I still think I should get you to level forty before I continue on. This is enough to help you reach level thirty-three at least.” he said.

Ero giggled excitedly then hugged herself. Soon she would be filled with more of her Scott’s lovely experience. They had spent two days working on the requests from the town quest board and during that time Scott had managed to reach level forty-two. The moment he had reached level forty, his experience requirements jumped considerably.

Scott immediately began the transfer protocol and Ero squealed in great excitement. She fluttered erratically for a moment before Scott caught her. The poor little thing spasmed and turned bright red as her body was filled with so much wonderful experience. She could hardly contain her enjoyment of the moment.

Eventually, Ero started to babble about her goodness. Every now and then she would whisper out, “Oh my goodness...” in soft, sultry, tones before she ran her hands along her body.

“Sometimes I wonder if she is having a fairygasm, or if she looted a personal stash of ecstasy.” said Scott.

Rhea laughed at him then walked over and looked down at the softly whispering fairy. She certainly looked like she had found a great deal of personal bliss.

“I should catch up with you soon, if you keep doing that.” said Rhea.

Her heightened experience requirement meant that it took ten times more experience than a human to gain a level. Scott’s human experience gain bonus made it so that he received far more experience when he defeated a higher level opponent than she did. It was problematic at times, but since he had to give his experience to Ero they managed it well. Such things would change when they transferred to the other server, but for now it was a workable situation.

“Will your experience requirements increase like mine?” he asked.

Rhea nodded to him. “Yes. Yours will increase again at level seventy and then once more after one hundred. Though, it won’t matter since we’ll transfer to the other server around that time.”

Scott smiled at her. “You know, I still don’t understand why you need so much more experience as an elf. The reincarnation thing sort of negates the purpose of an enhanced lifespan, doesn’t it?”

“A little, but it is more of an endgame and lore thing. Elves are meant to be epic and powerful beings with incredible skill in the endgame. They take a lot longer to reach the higher levels, but when they get there they are far stronger than most other races” said Rhea.

“That makes sense. Given how quickly I could hurl myself up the experience ladder, most humans probably struggle with their ability points.” said Scott.

It was on old topic, but he had decided to revisit it since it had always bothered him. In the end, what real purpose did it serve other than to keep the number of elf players down? Of course, that could be the true purpose. After he asked Rhea that point specifically she smiled at him.

“Yes, that is part of the reason. Elves are meant to be rare and powerful existences. They are one or two steps below the divine races of the world.” said Rhea.

“Divine races?” asked Scott.

Rhea nodded at him. “Yes, as an elf I am connected to the forces of nature in a more direct manner. I can’t use primordial magic because of my class, but if I were to reincarnate as an advanced class for my race, I could be connected to the wind and the rain, or the earth and the flame.”

“Oh, so you are naturally connected to something I have to learn?” asked Scott.

“In a manner of speaking, though as a Sorcerer you also are deemed somewhat special.” she said.